1. Target earliest bloomers like Euphorbia for immediate cutbacks. Don’t try letting them re-grow from up above; it’s too strenuous for their good. Ask them to push anew from the base by giving an end-of-winter severe haircut, down near the base. Even later-bloomers that grow from those dense, cushion-like crowns (Sedum spectabile, such as ‘Autumn Joy,’ comes to mind) will be easier to clean up now than once they start to push.
2. Evergreen or otherwise-persistent perennial foliage (European ginger or Asarum europaeum, Helleborus, Epimedium) that will soon be replaced with a fresh flush of leaves needs to go, too. Yes, the plant will do just fine even if you leave it on…but will look so much tidier if you snip off and compost last year’s leaves. Another that I need to get to fast in this category: Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon,’ the grasslike variegated sweet flag. Impossible to clean it up once it gets going again.3. Cut down ornamental grasses. Mice and all the rest of the garden undesirables are thinking it’s the Maternity Ward in there, I fear, so off with their heads (the grasses’, that is), right by the base, asap.4. Empty bird boxes. Bluebirds won’t accept a dirty box, and I always hope for at least one family of bluebirds a year. Wear a glove when you do this task; more than one nesting mouse has run up my arm in the process. Ugh.
5. Muck fallen leaves from the frog ponds. This annual ritual, accomplished gently with endless swoops of a fish net, digs up more
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